


The Ghost of Pettigrew Street

by DoreyG



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Collateral Damage, Developing Friendships, Enduring Pain to Protect Another, Ethical Dilemmas, Fear, Gen, Ghosts, Grant Morrison Run, Gunshot Wounds, Hospitals, Major Character Injury, Mission Failure, Past Tense, Present Tense, Struggling with parenthood, Treat, Urban Legends, fear toxin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He fades in and out of consciousness, out of control in a way that he hasn't been for... Well, he would like to say a while. He tries desperately to grasp for the brief snatches of reality he brushes against, tries desperately to focus on the real details as opposed to the universe of vagueness around him, but every single time he fails.</p><p>He gets the impression that he's been failing a lot, lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost of Pettigrew Street

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).



He fades in and out of consciousness, out of control in a way that he hasn't been for... Well, he would like to say a while. He tries desperately to grasp for the brief snatches of reality he brushes against, tries desperately to focus on the real details as opposed to the universe of vagueness around him, but every single time he fails.

He gets the impression that he's been failing a lot, lately.

When he comes back to himself he notices that he's lying on a bed. Which is nice, considering the various other things that he's woken up sprawled upon in his time. It's a slightly hard bed, and one significantly smaller than his usual. A thin, rubbery looking line snakes across it and rucks up the sheets just slightly. It takes a long few moments of staring before he realizes that it's attached to him, and then-

He fades again.

He's lying on a bed in a room, a surprisingly big room with dull cream walls and one large window set to his side. He can see the first from the moment he opens his eyes, he can see the second when he exerts just the slightest bit of effort to turn his head and do a proper surveillance of the area. But apparently the slightest bit of effort is too much effort, and-

He fades again.

He's in a hospital, he pieces together the next time he surfaces. There's an odd fuzziness in his head, a burning pain in his chest like he's just been carelessly smacked with a baseball bat, but Batman trained him and he can manage that small deduction at least. The walls are that particular shade only found in a hospital, the rubbery looking line is obviously meant to treat him. Not to mention the one slightly worried looking doctor standing by the bed, the array of pretty nurses scuttling around her with equally perturbed expressions and-

He fades again, before he can even _enjoy_ it.

Not that there's much to enjoy, apparently, considering that he's in a hospital and can't quite remember why. When he claws himself back to reality the next time the pain like he's been hit by a baseball bat is still there, but accompanied by a red hot burn that seems to be boiling him alive from within. Alfie - Alfred? - is sitting on one side of the bed, head bowed and hands trembling just slightly. A small, intense looking boy is sitting on the other with his expression torn between guilt and rage - and he swears that there's a reason for both of those things, he knows it in his circus boy _bones_ , but-

He fades again, god _dammit_.

There's something wrong here, he decides the next time he surfaces with the pain still burning in his chest like some kind of accusation. He's not quite sure what it is, but it lingers in the air in a way that not even he can avoid. The surprisingly big room is quickly starting to feel like a prison, the bed is like a spiky grave beneath him. The hospital is a tomb, Alfie's hands are _shaking_ and his mother is nowhere to be found. And the pain, the pain, the _pain_ like a burning hot poker in his chest is-

He fades out of consciousness again, and is almost glad that he does so before he starts screaming.

 

\--

 

_It all started when they got a report of a ghost on Pettigrew Street._

_He'd lived in Gotham for years, ever since that terrible day when the rope snapped and plunged him straight into an entirely different life. He didn't have - would probably never have - more knowledge of the place than Bruce did, but he still knew it more intimately than most people ever would._

_He knew the streets, both on foot and from up above. He knew the people, from the collection of loons housed in Arkham to the ordinary men and women just trying to make their way in life. He knew the fairytales that children whispered to each other in the playground, he knew the legends that adults murmured to each other late at night. He knew it all, as dramatic as it sounded, down in his bones._

_The ghost on Pettigrew Street was an old legend, one dating from Victorian times. There had been an old bitter hermit living alone in a house, and he had done what all old bitter hermits tend to do and died with unfinished business. His spirit had apparently lingered ever since, the fable of him being told again and again even as the old rows of houses had been knocked down and replaced with soon abandoned warehouses full of discarded goods._

_Bruce had investigated the tale, of course. It had been one of his old favourites when he was a child, he'd admitted one night with a slightly embarrassed smile, and so he had felt honour bound to take some time out and investigate it when he acquired the means. He'd found nothing. There were ghosts in Gotham, yes, but the ghost on Pettigrew Street was not one of them. He had found only echoing space, abandoned boxes and a few footprints in the dust from rapidly fleeing junkies. The case had been shut as quickly as it had been opened._

_...Until._

_"'There have been reports of strange noises and lights coming from Pettigrew Street'," he read off the screen, sighed softly - for he had been vaguely dreaming of spending that night with a trashy book and a warm bath - and pulled his cowl back up over his hair, "we should check it out."_

_"Really?" Damian snorted, crossed his arms firmly over his chest and scowled like he wished the entire universe was on fire, "it is a couple of scared teenagers at most, starting over shadows and allowing their own fears to rule them. We have better things to do."_

_"Perhaps," he allowed, still not quite sure how to deal with Damian even after several weeks together. The boy - for Damian was a boy, no matter how much he wished he were older - was so naturally different from him that every interaction was still a struggle, "but it won't take long. A few minutes, just to check that something isn't actually going on, and then we can take care of other things.”_

_Damian's scowl only deepened, deliberately scornful of his every single effort, "my father-"_

_He sighed lowly, pushed away from the Batcomputer. The one thing that their weeks together had given him was the knowledge that he couldn't just give in to Damian's absurd sulkiness, for that way ultimate defeat lay, "Bruce isn't here, Damian, as much as I desperately wish otherwise. I'll meet you by the Batmobile. At least try to remember what a smile is before then?"_

 

\-- 

 

His arm is numb.

It's an odd thing to notice, when he tumbles back into consciousness again, but somehow he can't help but fixate on it. His arm doesn't hurt at all, not like that time he landed heavily on it a few years before his parents died or that time he twisted it when he was fifteen and thought he could take on a whole room of thugs all by himself, but it _is_ numb. His fingers tingle, his skin buzzes. The whole limb feels somehow far away, like it could just detach and drift off with him unable to do a single thing about it.

His arm feels like it should hurt.

But then... That's not entirely accurate, is it? The memories are still floating chaotically through his head, as able to be grabbed as shadows or dreams, but he doesn't think he landed heavily on it or twisted it or even broke it. From what he can remember, his arm at least is perfectly normal.

Maybe it only feels like it should ache because it still has that plastic tube in it, trailing from just above his elbow to some point beyond the bed. Maybe it only feels like it should ache because he _is_ lying in bed, a slightly fancier than normal hospital bed obviously tricked out with all the luxuries that Wayne money - which he is in charge of now, which he fully benefits from now, which Bruce's probable death gave to him - can afford.

He frowns a little, moves gingerly until he isn't quite collapsed on his back like a rolled over turtle. He's never really been one to lounge around, not while there are backflips to be done and buildings to be capered over.

...Not that he'll be doing that for a while, judging by the way he feels - numb, and increasingly aching - and where he _is_.

He doesn't know how he ended up here, still has no idea, but he does know very firmly that ending up in hospital is rarely a good thing. It's usually a sign of some sort of condition, or at least an operation needing desperately to be performed. It's a sign of an illness, a malady, something not quite right. It's the aftermath of an accident, a crime, a thing gone wrong-

But _what_?

The last thing he remembers is being a perfectly healthy, sometimes _more_ than perfectly healthy if he's going to be honest about his physique, man in his mid-twenties. He had no conditions, no pressing need for an operation. The biggest illness he had was the aftermath of a cold, the biggest malady a permanent inability to remember to keep his bank card with him. He was sure enough on his feet to avoid most accidents, had recently been promoted to the man least likely in Gotham to suffer a crime.

Until something changed. Something that even now lurks, shadowy and sinister in the recesses of his memory.

He tries very hard to think about it, tenses every working muscle in his body and every thinking part of his mind on the problem. He worries at it like a dog, bats over it like a cat. He turns it over and over with an intensity that would make even Tim proud, would make even Jason whistle in awe, would make even Damian shake his head and pretend not to be impressed. 

And he remembers a glimpse of white, a low screech of rage and a sudden pain blossoming in his memory-

And, at the same time, is sharply reminded of the actual reality of being in hospital. Reality fades away around him suddenly, yet again. So sharp and quick that it's like a baseball bat to the head, a burning poker in the chest yet again.

 

\--

 

_They perched on an overhang just across from the former house - currently warehouse - of the old hermit. The night was dark and quiet around them, unseasonably hot for the time of year. Not a maniac from Arkham seemed to yell, not a thug from the city centre seemed to grumble, not even a mouse in search of cheese seemed to squeak. All was calm, all was bright._

_...Except, wait, it wasn't quite that time of year._

_"I still say this is stupid," Damian grumbled, shifting from his gargoyle pose to scratch an itch on his leg. For all he sneered about being the grandson of the demon and so much better than the average ten year old, for all he actually was the grandson of the demon and so different from the average ten year old, he still often possessed far too much energy to keep still, "if my father was here-"_

_"Damian," he interrupted wearily, only managed to keep himself still from strength of will. It was, and would probably always be, odd to have to maintain the stiffness of Batman when just a few months ago he had been the capering Nightwing backflipping casually over the rooftops, "trust me, I really wish your father was here. But he's not, and so we have to go with what I think is best instead."_

_"What you think is best is pure foolishness, Grayson," Damian huffed. The night was too dark to see much detail even with the upgrades of the cowl, but he could've sworn that the brat rolled his eyes at him, "this is pointless, as I have been saying since we left the Cave. It is only teenagers, or a dog, or even a mouse and far too much imagination. We are wasting our time when we could be focusing on more important matters."_

_"Such as...?" He asked, trying to sound teasing but ending up weary and battered down instead._

_"Cleansing Gotham!" Damian exploded, obviously determined to not help at all. He still couldn't see much, but in the shadows he could glimpse a tensing of the boy's jaw that reminded him rather unflatteringly of Bruce, "finishing what my father started, proving ourselves worthy... Hurting as many scum as possible."_

_He paused for a second, staring over at the house. Allowed the sudden desperation in Damian's words, the sharp way that desperation was cut off, to settle into him._

_He never really thought that he'd have kids. He fundamentally, on the level of his bones, believed that he wasn't suited for it. He was the funtime boy, the backflipping jester incapable of taking anything seriously. And even under that front, the one he put up to keep people from realizing that he had a fury even darker than Bruce's lurking underneath, he just wasn't ready for it - the level of care, the having to protect something so close to him, the knowledge that if he died like his parents his child would be left as alone as he was._

_And this isn't quite like having a child, no. He knew very well that Damian wasn’t exactly his son, that Damian certainly didn’t consider him as a father figure, that they were barely brothers let alone anything else..._

_But._

_He huffed out a long sigh, tensed all his limbs in preparation for finding something to say. Was somewhat, more than somewhat, relieved when a sudden light came on across the way and delivered him from any need to come up with the perfect words, "look!"_

_"A light," Damian sniffed scornfully, but remained ten years old and so fundamentally unable to hide his interest, "wow, totally worth blowing off patrol for."_

_"It'll take ten minutes," he answered, driven on to desperation by the force of his relief, and jumped off the building - flipped around a lamppost for a moment before the knowledge that he was Batman and not Nightwing knocked him to the ground like a stone, "you'll see."_

 

\--

 

He's known Alfie - Alfred, _Alfred_ \- ever since he was a kid, ever since a few days after his parents died when Bruce Wayne turned up at the police station with a fancy car and a strangely intense expression in his eyes.

The man, no offense to Bruce who did at least usually made some sort of effort over the years, is probably the closest to a parental figure that he's had ever since he saw his mom and dad die in front of him. He was always firm, but kind. He never got angry, but had turned the act of looking _disappointed_ into an art form. His waffles were always like sludge, but his cookies were divine and he would always look the other way when half of them ended up disappearing in mysterious circumstances.

He's sitting by the hospital bed now, his head bowed and his hands clenched together so tightly that his knuckles are white.

The pain has faded until it's a low background hum at the most, which is good. But at the same time the numbness has spread from his arm to the rest of his body, which is bad. He feels drugged. And while he's never had as much of an aversion as Bruce to that sort of thing, he saw the man literally leap out of a window to avoid taking painkillers once, it's still not exactly a pleasant feeling. He can't really move, is left adrift in a sea of vague nothingness and complete boredom.

He focuses his drifting mind back on Alfie - Alfred, he only really calls the man Alfie when something is badly going wrong - for something to do.

The man remains sitting by the hospital bed, remains with his head bowed and his hands white-knuckled. He doesn't seem to have noticed that he's woken up. Which he's not going to take offense over, no way, because he knows very well that it's hard to notice anything when you look as miserable as Alfie - Alfred, Alfred - does at the moment.

He looks like he did when Damian fell badly that one time, almost broke his neck with the force of his enthusiasm to be just like his dad. He looks like he did after Bruce went missing, probably dead. He looks like he did when Jason actually died, when his broken corpse was dragged from that warehouse still warm but undeniably good. Alfie - Alfred? - looks-

-And isn't this a bad situation? Isn't he lying in a hospital bed, swimming between horrific pain and disturbing numbness? Shouldn't he be calling Alfred Alfie, grasping for whatever comfort he can with his ever so numb fingertips?-

-Heartbroken. He narrowly drags his mind back from drifting yet again. Is somewhat unsurprised when his attempts to further distract himself - to twitch his fingers, sing a song, lift himself out of his bed and launch himself into the air like a bird on the wing - lead to nothing but his hand lying weakly on the starched sheets of the bed. It seems like that sort of situation, after all.

Alfie - definitely Alfie, no question about it - remains sitting by his bed with his head bowed and his knuckles white. He remains lying in the bed, unable to move and slightly annoyed about it. The pain remains lurking at the edges, the numbness serene over it like it has not a care in the world.

He supposes there's no point wondering any more, even if he's going to continue to attempt it for something to do. Something terrible has happened, something so terrible that he's not sure if he's going to survive it.

He hopes Damian - and Tim, and Babs, and Steph, and even Jason who has so often caused that mournful expression on Alfie's face - is alright.

He wishes his mom were here.

 

\--

 

_The warehouse was oddly muggy, when they swung into it through one of the shattered upper windows. It should’ve been relatively clear, relatively pristine and undisturbed after all these years of abandonment, but... It wasn’t. There was a haze on the air, dirty yellow in colour and immediate enough to be like a touch against the skin. When he took a deep breath, it even burnt all the way down like acid against his insides._

_“Something is wrong here,” Damian whispered from his side, glancing around with narrow eyes. Suspicion writ clear across his face, because god forbid the boy ever learn to hide his emotions._

_“I hate to say I told you so,” he grinned in response, covering the brief surge of annoyance – the more lasting surge of worry – with his most optimistic grin, “but, well, I _did_. Isn’t this worth skipping patrol for? Isn’t this worth delaying the ‘cleansing’ of Gotham over for just a few brief-?”_

_“Hush!”_

_He ground to a halt, faintly annoyed that Bruce’s obedience training still lingered even several years later. But the annoyance, thankfully, could not last for long. He turned, slightly huffily on his heel, and immediately saw the cause for Damian’s worry – a group of three wide eyed teenagers, one girl and two boys, huddled together on the floor like they were terrified of something._

_“Hey,” he said, faintly surprised. And then realised that he was Nightwing no more, had to be the dark Batman possibly forever, and moderated his voice to a heavier growl, “what are you kids doing here? Don’t you know it could be dangerous?”_

_...That’d been a dumb thing to say, they obviously had. The girl was wide eyed and panting, shaking like a leaf on the wind. One boy had tear tracks down his face, and his arms wrapped around himself like that would keep the whole wide world out. The other had his hands clenched desperately into fists, his teeth bared like a cornered animal._

_“Didn’t you hear the man?” Damian, never the best at reading obvious emotional cues, snapped. Strode a few paces forwards towards the terrified rabble, before he could reach out to stop him and force a regroup, “he said-“_

_“We heard what he said,” the girl tried to snap, her teeth chattering so hard that it came out closer to a sob than anything else._

_“You shouldn’t have come here,” the first boy whined, tears still shining on his face as he lifted his head and fixed them with a terribly despairing glance, “You shouldn’t have disturbed him, you shouldn’t have come here-“_

_He opened his mouth, started to ask just why their arrival was such an issue-_

_But he didn’t have to. Just as his jaw unhinged, he sensed movement behind him – a slow hissing, like something starting to unfurl. He spun around into a crouch, instantly on guard for whatever would come next... And came face to face with a ghost, one that towered over him with an expression of scorn on its twisted features._

_“I should’ve known you would interfere, you seem incapable of anything else!” It screeched, in an oddly familiar voice, and raised one pale hand. It was tall and bony, oddly solid for a ghost but still unfurling in a way that seemed far from human, “and now you shall pay the price, for your infernal nosiness!”_

_“No!” Damian yelled, glimpsing the shape of the future a second before he did._

_...But it was already too late. The ghost waved its hand, and the chest of the first boy – the one who had whimpered so pitifully – exploded into blood. He fell back slowly, eyes lifeless as the screams of the other two rose up over his corpse._

 

\--

 

So that was what happened!

He forces his eyes open the next time with a new sense of triumph, satisfaction coiling down in his gut. The truth has been revealed, fractured part by fractured part. They went after a ghost, followed that ghost into an abandoned warehouse, got in a little over their heads, watched a man die due to their arrogance... And suddenly everything is explained, in one sharp and sudden moment.

But wait.

The fact that they went ghost hunting doesn’t explain why he’s currently lying in a hospital bed. The fact that they snuck into that warehouse doesn’t explain why poor Alfie looked so very worried. The fact that they got in a little over their heads doesn’t explain why even the doctor looks drawn and thin and worn out. The fact that somebody else died, as terrible as that truly is, doesn’t explain why he’s currently in such searing pain.

The numbness has retreated again, to be replaced by that old burn that pins him in place just as surely. The doctor is by the side of his bed again, making notes on a clipboard and occasionally glancing over him with a weary expression. Alfie has obviously been shuffled out, probably to pace back and forth in the corridor and fret about literally everything. The bed remains a hospital bed underneath him, the walls remain that off shade of cream and the room continues to get closer and closer around him like he’s some sort of caged bird.

And all he has are snatches of memory, vague things that his mind can grab at but not quite manage to hold. He remembers Damian scowling at his side while he was on the computer, but not quite what he was scowling over. He remembers the cold of the night as they perched outside that warehouse, but not exactly the way the warehouse looked. He remembers the hollow feeling in his stomach when that boy died in front of him, but not the truth of what killed him. He remembers some things, but only enough to make a patchwork full of holes.

At least he remembers Damian’s name this time... Right?

The brief victory barely takes away from the sting of all his defeats, and doesn’t take away at all from the hollow knowledge of what is to come. The truth of what actually happened still waits ahead of him, lurking and deadly and with the only clues being the smell of fresh blood and the pain still lingering sharply hot in his upper chest.

Nothing has been explained yet.

Nothing has been explained yet, nothing will be explained easily and the knowledge is dragging him steadily down like a stone on his chest. Down into the darkness, down into the vaguely shifting ocean of memory that will probably end up drowning him if he lets it.

He decides, with a sudden burst of viciousness, that he _hates_ the colour cream.

 

\--

 

_The boy slumped to the floor, dead as a doornail, and for a long moment the world stopped making sense. He was left frozen in place, staring at those wide eyes and the splattered blood up his chest. Damian staggered a little ahead of him, face going pale and eyes going narrow with rage. The two survivors wailed helplessly, clutched each other like that would somehow protect them from the sting of reality._

_...Luckily, as much as you could ever apply the word luckily to such circumstances, he was kind of used to death. Had been ever since his parents had plummeted to their deaths in front of him. It wasn't exactly a safe business, being a vigilante. Every day since he had first met Bruce he had danced merrily between several types of horror, and he wasn't exactly about to stop now even if a ghost was telling him to do so._

_"Did you see how it did that?" He asked Damian as lowly as he could. There was no chance of keeping their conversation private in here, not with those acoustics, but he could at least try to be as sensitive as possible._

_"He killed him," was Damian's first answer, for a brief moment sounding like a completely normal ten year old boy. But he wasn't, he was Damian Wayne, and so soon covered that brief slip with a cool blink and a long moment of thought, "an aneurysm? A heart attack?"_

_"You're saying he died by chance?"_

_"I'm not saying that at all," Damian answered him tersely, giving him a brief scowl from under the domino which - odd as it was - made him feel a lot more comfortable with the whole situation, "I'm saying that it - the ghost - triggered it. I have read a lot of literature, don't they often have those powers?"_

_He hesitated for a second, keen to praise Damian for his detective prowess but at the same time... Strangely unsettled. Something wasn't quite right, something was warped around the edges. And if there was anything Bruce had taught him over the years, anything the various Rogues in Gotham and the Robins that followed after him had hammered in, it was that Batman always had to pay attention to that which was not quite right or else suffer the consequences._

_Although, it often seemed like suffering the consequences was part and parcel of the deal anyway._

_"Stop talking and help us, you fucking idiots!" The surviving boy screeched from his corner, his arms wrapped firmly around the girl like that would shield her from the horrors right in front of them._

_"I agree," the ghost sneered , sounding utterly unimpressed, and lifted its - his? - hand again. A casual gesture, a scornful one, an utterly deadly one in a way that cut right to the heart, "at least in part. You really should stop talking and start taking this situation seriously, Bat brats, or else..."_

_And the second boy's head exploded, a fountain of gore erupting as the girl let out a hysterical scream and Damian screeched from just a few steps ahead._

 

\--

 

When he next wakes up Robin is sitting by his bedside.

He startles, no more than a twitch in his present state, and can’t help but find himself stunned for a second. Surely his injuries weren’t bad enough to split him into two, to create a mirror image of himself apparently set only on standing silently above him and judging him for his sins? He’s seen some weird things over the years, no denying that, but...

Wait.

He hasn’t been _Robin_ for years. There have been four after him, all special in their own different ways. There’s been Jason with his intensity, Tim with his intelligence, Steph with her determination, Damian with his desperate desire to do some good no matter where he started from. For all its faults this spectre standing over him in red and yellow, with a slightly wobbly scowl on its lips and short hair under the upturned hood of its cowl, is most certainly not him.

Jason is off god knows where, still facing the bitterness of returning to life. Tim has also fled to some far flung place, chasing a ghost who probably no longer exists. Steph is Batgirl now, still determined to get up and try no matter how many times she goes wrong. Which leaves...

“That’s the most movement you’ve managed in days,” Damian informs him, voice rough, and finally pushes back his hood. The boy looks more vulnerable than he’s ever seen him, and it strikes at his heart in a way that he never expected, “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m _supposed_ to be tucked away in bed like a good little boy, but... I’m glad I am, just so I can see that.”

It still feels impossible to move, that numbness back and weighing him down like a stone on his chest, but in that moment he’s never wished to be able to more. He’s always been a tactile person. He wants to leap up, gather Damian to his chest in a fierce hug for the vulnerability he’s just shown.

“Pennyworth is worried about you,” Damian says, as if trying to cover himself. But he doesn’t try very well, this late and with only him to see. Even in the dim light of the room the boy’s face is clearly anguished, pale and waxen as if he’s been worrying for days and finds himself entirely unable to stop, “about the not moving, about what happened, about what’s going to happen next. They’re considering operating on you, Grayson. A high risk procedure, but one that may well give you a high chance of recovery. Not that it stops Pennyworth from worrying, considering that he seems set on only hearing the high risk part.”

He waits for a long few seconds. Still desperately wanting to be able to leap up, to gather Damian to his chest and gather Alfie to his chest and get back to normal without burning or numbness or confusion deep enough to be worse than both of them.

“...I must admit, it is hard not to,” Damian bites his lip and ducks his head, obviously feeling exactly the same way, “please- try to refrain from dying if you can, Grayson. I have already lost my father, to death or possibly something far worse. I am not sure that I could keep going, if I were to lose you too.”

 

\--

 

_Something was wrong._

_Well, yes, that was entirely obvious. Two boys, neither looking over twenty, were lying dead on the floor. The girl who had been with them was borderline hysterical, sandwiched between two corpses and unable to move for fear of her own death. Damian was still shaking with a quiet fury in front of him, small hands balled into fists and entire posture braced for an attack._

_...But it was more than the obvious._

_There was a ghost in Pettigrew Street, the rumours were true. It was a powerful ghost, and one that obviously wanted to be left alone as befitted a former hermit. It was willing to go to obscene lengths to ensure that was the case, plunging two innocents into death at the drop of a hat._

_But._

_None of those things made much sense. Why were there no real, concrete rumours of a ghost before the last few weeks? Why would the ghost only properly show itself when they, the dynamic duo, arrived on the scene? Why would it feel the need to surge into violence so quickly, largely unprovoked?_

_And there were more details beyond that, more things that didn't quite add up. The soft yellowish haze still lingering in the air, the presence of the teens, the solid appearance of the ghost and its ability to influence its surroundings._

_"Batman," Damian said through gritted teeth, snarled a little when he didn't respond and took a sharp step in his direction, "Batman, we have to get the survivor out of here."_

_Something was wrong._

_"Batman!"_

_Something was definitely wrong._

_"Damn it, Bat-!"_

_And he was Batman, no longer the carefree Robin or the capering Nightwing, and so he had to pay attention to it. Bruce wouldn't have let it lie, Bruce wouldn't have succumbed to his desperate fear, and so he had to do the same. He closed his eyes for a moment, regretfully ignoring Damian's rage, and focused on the details instead._

_The yellow haze in the air, the fear, the presence of the teens, the fear, the way that the teens were so obviously terrified to the point where their skins were all several levels beyond pale and their eyes all resembled those of junkies, the fear, the solidness of the ghost, the fear, the way that the ghost recognized them, the..._

_Fear._

_"For god's sake, G-!"_

_"No names in the field," he reminded Damian sharply, and forced open his eyes. The yellow haze remained in the air, even heavier and slimier now that he properly paid attention to it, but it wasn't the be all and end all of everything. It could be worked through, had been worked through many times before, "tell me, who's standing in front of us right now?"_

_"...Are you completely-?"_

_"Robin!"_

_And Damian stopped, sulkily. And Damian snapped his mouth closed, angrily. And Damian looked arrogantly over at the suddenly still ghost standing before them, obviously with his answer already prepared in his mind._

_...And Damian stopped dead, the pressure of actually being forced to think enough to shatter through the haze, "you."_

_And under the haze stood the truth, Jonathan Crane - more famously known as the Scarecrow, proud creator of the fear toxin - with a gun in his hand and an increasingly wrathful tension that lingered in his shoulders._

 

\--

 

The pain is back.

And apparently he's a big fan of the obvious lately, because the pain is _really_ back. The feeling like he's been hit with a baseball bat, a baseball bat that was on fire and had possibly been dunked in pure acid, has returned. It's intense enough to pin him to the bed, intense enough that it's extremely hard to focus on anything but the feeling of it screwing deep into his body.

A pity, that the universe is disinclined to let him focus on only that, "if you can hear me, try to remain calm."

If he thinks a little, an act akin to climbing a mountain at present, he remembers that voice. An image of a doctor floats on top of the pain, the one that was looking pinched and worried despite herself. Doctors almost never look worried, seem actively trained not to be no matter how much shit comes their way – so if she’s allowing the slightest twinge to show on her face… Well, things must really be bad.

"The bullet is currently lodged in your upper chest, just below your collarbone but thankfully a little above your heart," the voice continues, at least managing to sound steady even if the doctor's face - which he can't see at the moment, consumed as he is by the level of _ouch_ \- is probably anything but, "along with a good chunk of what you were wearing at the time."

He smirks a little, even through the steady level of _ouch_ , at the sudden dubiousness in her tone. The batsuit, it must be. She's obviously too professional to start nosing around at this juncture, but she'd be a saint if she didn't wonder why exactly a perfectly ordinary playboy had a mixture of leather and kevlar jammed into his wounds.

"We're taking you to surgery at the moment," the Doctor sighs, obviously deciding to set aside the question for now. He'll have to donate to this hospital, when- if, if he recovers, "there is a high element of risk due to the sensitive position of the bullet, but your next of kin - Alfred Pennyworth, according to your papers - has given his full consent. And we will obviously try to minimize any problems as much as we possibly can."

He continues smirking, but less enthusiastically than before. Which is something, considering that even before he probably managed a slightly less pained grimace at most. The thought of Damian crouching nervously at his bedside, the thought of Alfred so worried and yet so hopeful at the same time, the thought that the matter of his recovery is still very firmly an 'if' as opposed to a 'when'...

"Once we've completed it, you should be in a far more stable position," the Doctor says from above, her voice seeming increasingly far away as if he's slowly falling down a hole away from her and all that he knows, "and, ideally, a far less painful one."

This time, when that old numbness rises up to take him again, he's almost relieved. It saves him from the worry, at least. The thought of Damian all alone without him, the thought of Alfred mourning yet another loss, the thought of his own death with that bullet mysteriously embedded in his chest...

 

\--

 

_Crane – the Scarecrow, as he was dressed in full regalia with a bag right over his head – huffed and seemed on the point of stamping his feet. The fury rolled off him in waves, so intense that it was almost enough to be a physical force against the skin._

_“He’s not a ghost,” Damian commented, and then immediately looked even more annoyed at himself for stating the absolutely obvious._

_“He’s not,” he agreed anyway, well used to the aftereffects of the fear toxin upon your ability to reason, and dared to send the boy an encouraging smile. Completely out of character, of course, but considering the seriousness of the situation he thought he could be allowed a brief slip, “I should’ve known, from the moment I saw the mist in the air. He escaped from Arkham a few weeks back, and I thought-“_

_“What?” Crane interrupted them, a dangerous tone to his voice. His fingers remained curled around the gun, so tightly that they stood out bone white against the black casing, “what did you think, Bat Brat? That you and your loathsome little family were the only ones who knew the meaning of speed?”_

_“Shut up, scum-!”_

_“Robin!” He said strictly, but not with too much heat. He felt somewhat crabby himself, considering the two dead boys on the floor and the hysterical girl still weeping. He was meant to be the good and hopeful one, the one who held on to his moral core even as his partners went deeper and deeper into darkness, but at that moment... If Damian ended up pummelling the man’s kidneys a few times on the way back to Arkham, he was inclined to look the other way, “I underestimated you. I would apologise, but I’m sure you can take account of the situation and see why I won’t.”_

_“The situation,” Crane said, with a certain sneer to his tone that set his teeth on edge, “the situation that you caused, I will remind you!”_

_“Can I concuss him yet?” Damian asked, so hopeful that it was almost amusing._

_“If you had not arrived, in the same arrogant style that your lot always do, those two specimens would not be dead,” Crane continued, his voice rising in volume until he was actively raving. He could not see beyond the burlap sack, but he would’ve placed good money on those narrow eyes becoming steadily more deranged, “their blood is on your hands! All I wanted was to experiment, these test subjects would not even have been missed by anybody, but you cannot even extend that brief scientific courtesy.”_

_“Concussion sounds good,” he informed Damian, as levelly as he could in the face of such bile, and took a step forwards. He had never been as imposing as Bruce, physically, but the suit did a lot of his work for him, “on the count of three, go on to plan B and don’t spare your punches-“_

_“I thought that it would change, once the old Batman died,” Crane interrupted them archly, before he had more than the chance to take another step forward and Damian had the chance to do more than crack his knuckles menacingly, “but as it turns out, you are even more opposed to scientific advancement than he ever was. A pity...”_

_He froze for a long second on the balls of his feet, a thousand thoughts going through his mind in that one moment. Did Crane know that Bruce had been Batman? Did Crane know that he was Batman? Was Crane deep into their affairs, so deep that he knew everything about them?_

_...Had Crane made a lucky guess, based on the evidence of body shapes and no actual personal details? That seemed the most likely option, but in the second moment it took to realise that it had already become too late. The man had already raised his hand again, aimed the gun in a way seemingly designed to show how deadly it truly was, “for you, I’m afraid. I always hoped that the old Batman would one day accept my way of thinking, but when it comes to you? My dear boys, I have just realised that there is no hope at all.”_

 

\--

 

Damian sits by the bed with his head bowed, his fingers knotted in front of him so tightly that they've gone white around the knuckles again. He doesn't pray, he no doubt considers something so entirely based on faith alone pointless at best, but... He does look on the very verge of it, his fingers knotting and unknotting like he's fighting the urge to scream at the sky to make everything alright again.

Alfie sits on the other side of the bed looking no calmer, his face so drawn that he half looks like he should be shoved into a hospital himself. Alfie himself has never been much one for praying, he's often hinted that his faith died even before Bruce's parents did, but... His lips move occasionally, brief fragments of words forming on them like he's making deals with the universe itself just to keep him alive.

And what does he do, in the face of such reluctant faith? In the face of such hope, growing ever stronger despite itself?

He... Continues to sprawl there.

The pain seems entirely gone, he notices with a faint pleasure, but in its place is even more numbness than before. He feels like he's on a cloud, floating in the middle of the sky with not a care in the world. He feels lighter than he ever has, like he could backflip and somersault and even rise up into the air like a bird on the wing. He feels-

Still pinned to a hospital bed in reality, annoyingly enough. His limbs still impossible to move, like heavy weights have been tied to the ends of them. His eyelids still heavy, like some little demon - _not_ Damian, for once - is unhelpfully pushing them down for him. His brain still ever so confused, and growing more frustrated with it by the moment.

It's not all bad, at least. He twitches his fingers briefly on the bed, not hard enough for either Damian or Alfie to notice alas, and tries to summon up his famous optimism. The pain has gone, yay! He has a little more idea of what happened, yay! He actually knows who did this to him and what exactly they did, double yay!

But.

 _But_.

Bruce always said that knowledge was one of the sweetest things in the world, but Bruce has been- _was_ wrong about far more than he let on over the years. The knowledge that the pain is gone only makes him tense, his instincts fully expecting it to surge back at any moment. He has some idea of what happened, but that idea is so steeped in murder and mayhem that it's hardly a comforting one. He knows that the Scarecrow shot him, but he still doesn't remember the exact moment of impact.

...Or, more importantly, the moments before. What led the Scarecrow to take that final step, whether anybody else was hurt, whether anybody else died and he couldn't save them because of the intervention of that gun and that bullet.

He still has to remember more.

And even his famous optimism, even his carefully created brightness in contrast to the darkness of the world all around him, can't quite take away from the bitterness of that. 

 

\--

 

_"I want you to know something, Bat Brats," Crane said almost conversationally, his finger rock solid on the trigger. He felt a fool for not expecting that, really, it made sense that every single criminal in the city of Batman would become at least reasonably proficient with arms, "especially you, the one who decided to follow the most basic human psychology possible and dress up just like daddy."_

_"Crane-" he tried, voice placating._

_"You caused this," Crane only smiled an oddly serene smile, ignored him. Which was the dangerous thing about Crane, really - as deranged as some of his ideas were, the man was generally rather adept at remaining calm while there was still hope, "you could've walked away, you could've waited, you could've done the sensible thing and not followed rumours for kicks... But you didn't."_

_"Crane," he tried again, voice a little more desperate this time as the barrel of the gun continued to stare them down, "Crane, please-"_

_"And now two deaths are on your hands, and at least one more is about to be," Crane smirked a little, gave him a very deliberate glance. The amusement that sparkled in his gaze made his hands very slowly clench into fists, "the old Batman never said please, never wavered. My, whatever would daddy think of you now?"_

_"That's enough!" Damian snapped, before he could even think to stop him, surged a step forward only to be stopped by what little sense he possessed, "we can take him, Batman, I know we can. We just have to go fast enough, hit hard enough..."_

_"Whatever would daddy think of both of you, the pathetic Batman and the thuggish Robin?" Crane mused softly, kept smiling that loathsome smile as he slowly aimed the gun at Robin's bare forehead, "who's it going to be, Bat Brat One?"_

_He swayed for a second on the spot, pinned by indecision despite himself. The leather covered kevlar and the heaviness of the cape weighing him down more than he ever thought they would._

_"Bat Brat Two?" Crane chuckled, obviously sensing blood in the air like the shark he was, "or Three, or Four... Or even Five by now, considering how quickly you lot seem to change your stripes. He's a little thug, sure, but he still looks around ten years old. A child, shot in the head due to your negligence. Could you live with that, Bat Brat One? Could you?"_

_"If you expect me to be afraid..." He said finally, tone as level as he could make it._

_"Or could you live with the lovely Marilyn better?" Crane cackled, delighted at his attempt to hide, and swiftly swung the barrel to where the one survivor was still sobbing over the corpses of her friends, "or at least that's the name she told me, when I picked her from where she was. It would be a pity to lose my last experiment before I even had a chance to record the effects, but then... I'm pretty sure your guilt would soothe that brief pain."_

_He glared for a second, trying to gather himself even with Crane still staring at him in delight._

_"Well, Bats?"_

_"I'm not going to let you kill anybody," he growled, finally - for the first time since he had put on the stupid ears - mastering Bruce's absurd growl, "tell me what you want, Crane, and I may just stop my partner from knocking all of your teeth out."_

_"A bit of spine, at last!" Crane crooned, but the amusement went out of his eyes at last - to be replaced by something cold and ugly, something that stared out at the three of them like a cornered snake, "almost a pity, that the only thing I really want - like so many of my fellow 'madmen' - is your heads on a platter."_

_And the gun swung around again, so quickly that it was hard to keep his eyes on it, and went off as loud as a thunderclap-_

_And he leapt forward. Determined to save at least one life, even if it wasn't his own._

 

\--

 

"...Damian!"

"Richard?" Damian replies sleepily, as he scrambles desperately upwards in bed - and then practically falls out of his chair in shock, only a hasty grasp at the arms stopping him from a very undignified tumble onto his face, "Grayson! Pennyworth, wake up, he's _moving_."

A kind term for it, considering that his current level of movement is flailing at the air like a drunken octopus, but he'll take it. And it's still enough to get Alfie starting awake in his own chair, blinking sleep from his eyes with an increasingly obvious level of joy. Still enough to get Damian almost smiling, actually looking a step from hopping up and down for possibly the first time in his life. Still enough to get him feeling _good_ , for the first time in...

Uh.

"So," he forces himself to ask, when all the hugging - and the wincing, because apparently he's still not _that_ recovered - is over and done with, "how long has it been, since... Since?"

Damian, still clutching his hand rather tightly considering the indifferent face that he's currently putting on, glances quickly over at Alfie. They communicate silently for a moment, as he patiently waits for this familiar ritual between Robin and butler to complete, "a week and a half, approximately."

"Not down to the seconds?" He teases, as lightly as he can considering the sudden darkness in Damian's tone.

"I've been counting the seconds, Grayson, so don't-" Damian cuts himself off with a peeved sigh, shakes his head. He wants to be amused, but can't quite summon it in the face of how that darkness continues to _linger_ , "I've been counting the seconds, but a week and a half is good enough for our purposes for now."

"I suppose it is," he says, gently, and dares to squeeze Damian's fingers as tightly as he can - the kid kinda deserves it, after all, "have I been here all this time?"

"We brought you here as soon as we were able, Master Dick," Alfie attempts a smile, but even the joy of his return can't make it anything more than wan, "Master Damian was quite insistent on the point, it was a struggle to get him to change and wash up a little."

"The people here are medical professionals," Damian interjects, just a touch sulkily, "they've seen worse."

"Which probably means that you should be kind to them, and not try to traumatize them more," he chides, but not with much force. Something that Damian grasps, judging by the sudden pressure around his fingertips, "what happened... In between?"

There's a long pause. Alfie glances away briefly, looking shifty. Damian stares straight at him, eyes dark and opaque.

"Before I arrived here," he presses, lowering his voice to a whisper even though there are no nurses in sight and he well knows how to talk around a secret by now, "but after... My sudden and unexpected accident."

"You were shot in an unexpected eruption of a gang war while walking to a party, Grayson. The only accident was that the bullet hit you as opposed to some nameless gangster," Damian sniffs as Alfie turns to watch the door, a little less subtle in his hiding but still very determinedly getting there, "I... Got worried. I told Pennyworth, we went out searching and we found you in a pool of your own blood."

"You were shot in the upper chest, to my understanding," Alfie interjects, his tone torn somewhere between scolding and relieved, "the bullet punctured no vital organs, but it is still hardly the best place to experience such an injury."

"I remember the sound of the gun, but everything else is blank," he says, actually truthful this time, "did... Did the person who did it linger?"

"No," Damian snaps, shortly.

"By the time that I- that we found you, the ruffian had already fled," Alfie gives a longer answer, frowning in the way that he always does when one of his charges is taking the whole wide world upon their shoulders, "he won’t evade justice for long, though, considering how quickly master Damian contacted the police and the very detailed description that the witness gave."

"There was a witness?" He fakes shock, inwardly can't stop thinking about that girl lying on the ground and crying her eyes out over her dead friends, "I wandered off the beaten track because I heard whimpering, I must admit, but I never thought-"

"I never realized," Damian interrupts, his voice cold enough that he's surprised ice doesn't spring up at the very touch of it.

"She was being kept prisoner in one of the warehouses nearby, quite possibly by one of those dreadful rogues that keep popping up in the newspapers. Her, and two fellow captives, got caught up in the sudden outbreak of gang warfare just as surely as you," Alfie slowly turns back from the door, glances between them slowly... And gives a soft, low sigh, "but that is, perhaps, a tale that it's best for somebody else to tell. I may go get some coffee, to fortify me after so many long nights spent pining by your bed. Maybe ask Master Damian to tell you the rest?"

It's a subtle hint, a nod towards the responsibility that he's been so long trying to work his way around.

...A good thing, that he no longer really feels like trying. He nods, smiles, accepts Alfie's hug and watches him leave in his usual terribly neat manner. While Damian continues to sit beside his bed, hands slowly clenching into fists and eyes increasingly avoiding his.

"Cheer up," he says gently, once the door has closed on Alfie's bald spot, "you did well."

"Did well?!" Damian practically explodes, and then calms down to a cough - at least aware, no matter how much he plays the violence loving thug, that a hospital is not the place for yelling, "I suppose so, Grayson. If you count doing well as letting two people die, watching my- watching _you_ get shot and then being too busy trying to stem the bleeding to stop the man who did it from getting away. What's doing excellently, in your book, allowing all of downtown Gotham to be blown up?"

"Damian," he says, soothingly. Uses his grip on Damian's hand, still there despite all the tension, to squeeze until the boy relaxes at least a little, "you saved my life."

"But I lost three others, weren't you paying attention?" Damian sneers at him, but his heart isn't in it. The usual passionate pride is replaced by something small and hurt, something more uncertain than he's ever seen Damian manage before, "Well, technically two others at present moment... But I would not bet on the girl surviving for long, once the police finally release her from custody."

"Damian..."

"The girl was called Mary Stacey, but went by Marilyn," Damian takes a deep breath, speaks over him with his usual level of brusqueness, "The boys were called Kyle Ward and Timothy Handley. They were all sixteen, and had all been in care since they were children. They were put into the same halfway house, a place to hold them until they were legally able to be forced into adult life, and they hated it and they were _terrified_. When Crane came he offered them a way out, offered them the whole wide world on a platter, and they didn't feel able to resist it. They all wanted so much more than they had been given, they all wanted to feel like _something_... And they were kept captive, and they were tortured, and then _I_ allowed them to die. I helped to kill them, Grayson, I-"

" _Damian_!"

And Damian finally stops. Taking deep and shallow breaths, his eyes gone dark with something that could be rage or could be tears.

Lucky, that he doesn't currently feel like looking into it too closely, "sometimes it goes like that. Sometimes everything goes wrong, everything explodes right in your face, and there's nothing you can do about it. That does not make it your fault. That does not mean that you're the one who took them, that you're the one who pulled the trigger, that you're the one who made Crane into the monster he is. It just means that... You were unlucky, for one night."

Damian stares at him for a long moment, tearful rage fading into a far more familiar kind of thought "my father always said that we didn't get to be unlucky, in this kind of work."

"Bruce was wrong about a lot of things," he sighs, suddenly more tired than he's ever been, "look... The entire situation was messed up out there, but you have to trust me when I say that - despite that - you did the very best you could. You saved me. And no matter what happens in the future, you saved Marilyn too. A hero isn't defined by success, by one win after another - a hero is defined by what they do when things get difficult, by how they pick themselves up after it all goes wrong."

"Grayson..."

"And by that logic, Damian, you're a greater hero than you give yourself credit for," he tries a grin, ignores how it feels so very fake on his lips, "hey, perhaps even greater than your father. Unless you've been brooding over bats while I've been out of action..."

"Tt," Damian huffs, and it's that simple little sound that tells him that his little motivational speech has worked. The kid doesn't quite smile, but he does sit up a little straighter in his chair and start looking like his usual arrogant self again, "do you know how hard bats are to keep successfully, Grayson? Trust me, it's _really_ not worth the effort."

"I wouldn't know," he says, innocently, "since I don't adopt every monstrous creature that happens to wander across my path."

"Bats aren't monstrous, they're very gentle and-" Damian grinds to a halt, gives him a narrow glare as he continues to smile his most innocent smile, " _tt_. I'd say that I'm glad to see you returning to full health, but if it means that you're returning to full exuberance I might well have to alter my opinion."

"You love it really."

"That, Grayson, is _highly_ debatable," Damian gives him a fond look for half a second, immediately covers it up with his usual level of haughtiness and rises huffily to his feet, "I fear that Pennyworth may well have fallen down some hole, considering how long he's taking. I should go find him, save him from whatever peril he's unwisely gotten himself into."

"I'll be fine," he answers the unspoken question, tries to look as content as possible while still lying in his hospital bed, "go be the most heroic hero to ever indulge in heroism, I'll be lying right here when you get back."

Damian gives him another narrow glance for a long few moments, but eventually the urge to hide his emotions gets far too strong for even him to resist. He shrugs, rises to his feet, departs with about three backwards glances. And so he's left, to settle back into his bed and revel in the lack of pain.

...And despair, over the thought of what the Scarecrow did and the knowledge that the old numbness has seeped into his soul and is still waiting underneath.


End file.
